Of course, you don’t have to have NSFW material on your device to want security. Comparatively few really do have such adult content. You can still feel protective of any pictures of yourself and your family, so encryption is essential.

Sadly, that’s not the case. Instead, files are marked as deleted; that’s not the same as being completely wiped.

A determined scammer can still recover information they should never have got their hands on — and if that’s how they make a living, the criminal will have software sophisticated enough to do a thorough and swift job of stealing it. This is a particular worry if your device doesn’t offer default encryption (such as the iPhone), so now is a good time to check out how secure your OS isWhat Is The Most Secure Mobile Operating System?What Is The Most Secure Mobile Operating System?Battling for the title of Most Secure Mobile OS, we have: Android, BlackBerry, Ubuntu, Windows Phone, and iOS. Which operating system is the best at holding its own against online attacks?Read More.

Fight Big Brother

It’s perfectly understandable if you’re troubled by the growing powers of international governments in infringing your privacy. The worst thing is, there’s very little you can do about it.

You’ll be familiar with PRISMWhat Is PRISM? Everything You Need to KnowWhat Is PRISM? Everything You Need to KnowThe National Security Agency in the US has access to whatever data you're storing with US service providers like Google Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook. They're also likely monitoring most of the traffic flowing across the...Read More, now what comes to mind when anyone mentions state surveillance, but the National Security Agency (NSA) and its global counterparts aren’t only keeping track of your Internet usage: your phone is naturally of interest. PRISM’s leak arguably just allowed intelligence services to own up to privacy invasions — not stop doing it.

It Doesn’t Noticeably Affect Performance

You’ll probably have heard that encrypting your smartphone slows it down. It’s that old argument of security versus convenience.

But if the latter is a priority to you, you needn’t worry. In the vast majority of cases, encryption doesn’t affect the performance of your phone to a noticeable extent. It’ll only affect older, less powerful handsets; if your OS is up-to-date, you shouldn’t have an issue.

Basically, your phone will be slightly slower when you unlock it because it needs to be decrypted each time, but owners have come to expect this sort of privacy layer from their devices, so that convenience goes hand-in-hand with security.

Loading times do naturally vary between manufacturer and OS — some reports state that the Nexus 5 takes longer than most to decrypt, while the effect on W10M and iPhones is minimal — but you won’t be lagging so far behind it becomes a huge nuisance.

As for anyone with Windows Phone or W10 Mobile, you need to firstly go on Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options and add a PIN. You can only encrypt the phone with this PIN: make sure it’s memorable but personal, so it’s not easy to guess, but not something you’ll easily forget either. This will be the only way to get access to your data.

Go back to Settings > System > Device encryption, and make sure it’s turned on. You’ll be redirected to Sign-in Options if you’ve forgotten to add a PIN.

See? It’s really that simple!

Is There Any Point Not Encrypting?

Considering the wealth of benefits, it’s a surprise device encryption isn’t more commonplace; perhaps this is due to the myths about performance or the optimistic outlook that thieves only every target other people…

When he’s not watching television, reading books ‘n’ Marvel comics, listening to The Killers, and obsessing over script ideas, Philip Bates pretends to be a freelance writer. He enjoys collecting everything.